How to
set-up

1. Mancala is played on a board with 12 play spaces on either side and a large storage space at either end, one for each player.

2. Mancala requires 48 BEADs of any colour. Four BEADs are placed onto each of the play spaces to start the game.

3. Each player will have six spaces in front of them and one storage space to their right.

4. Players decide who begins the game by rolling a die.

How to play

1. In turns, players pick up all the BEADs from any one of the spaces on their side of the board and redistribute them one BEAD in each space counter-clockwise including onto their own storage space and onto spaces their opponent’s side of the board. Player

2. If a player’s final BEAD is deposited onto their storage, they take another turn.

3. If a player’s final BEAD is deposited onto an empty space on their side of the board, the player captures that BEAD and all the BEADs on the opposite space on their opponent’s side of the board.

4. Play ends when all six spaces on one side of the board are empty, the player who still has BEADs places them all into their storage space.

How to win

To win the game, a player must have more BEADS than their opponent.

History

1. Mancala is a family of board games played around the world, sometimes called "sowing" games, or "count-and-capture" games, which describes the gameplay.

2. The word mancala comes from the Arabic word naqala meaning literally "to move". No game exists with the name mancala - the name is a classification or type of game.

3. More than 800 names of traditional mancala games are known, and almost 200 invented games have been described. However, some names denote the same game, while some names are used for more than one game.